Canada in talks with China to release Vancouver couple Kevin and Julia Dawn Garratt: son

Photograph by: HO
, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER -- Canada and China have started “very high-level” diplomatic talks to release a Vancouver couple accused of spying near the North Korean border, but their detention may last months, according to their son.

Chinese authorities are treating Kevin Garratt, 54, and Julia Dawn Garratt, 53, well at a “hotel-like” facility in Dandong, but the couple are now realizing that they may be caught up in a game of international intrigue between their adopted and native countries, their son Simeon said Wednesday afternoon in Vancouver.

His parents were detained Monday night after being accused of theft of state secrets.

Canadian consular officials were given access to the Garratts Wednesday and expected to be given continued access once every three weeks, Simeon said.

“If it’s nothing to do with them, actually, and it’s more a higher-level government (thing), I think that’s even more sad,” said Simeon.

Experts from Canada have speculated that the Garratts’ detention is in retaliation for Canada blaming Chinese hackers last week for infiltrating computers at the National Research Council Canada, something Beijing has vehemently denied.

They also may have become bargaining chips for Su Bin, a Chinese businessman appealing the revocation of his permanent residency in Canada as he faces extradition to the U.S. for a sophisticated hacking scheme to steal military secrets, according to Yves Tiberghien, director of the University of British Columbia’s Institute of Asian Research.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs didn’t return The Sun’s calls Wednesday.

Simeon said Canadian officials have told him “they do want to be involved” but have suggested the family hire a human rights lawyer to also start advocating for their parents’ release.

“There’s obviously some tension between Canada and China,” said Simeon, a 27-year-old entrepreneur who left China permanently in 2010. “If the Chinese authorities don’t want to be talking directly to the Canadian government about things, the lawyer could be an intermediary that could go directly between our family and my parents without having the embassy directly involved.”

Simeon believes his parents will eventually be released, but will likely have to return to Canada after living and working throughout China for 30 years.

“That’s hugely crushing — that’s pretty much their entire lives,” he said. “So I’m not sure what the consequences of that really are going to be.”

The couple’s Dandong café, Peter’s Coffee House, has been shut down indefinitely by authorities, according to Simeon’s younger brother Peter, who is living in the border city this summer before returning to Dalian next month to finish an undergraduate linguistics degree paid for by a Chinese government scholarship.

“I’ve had several phone calls from people in Dandong … in tears saying, ‘What’s going to happen to your parents? Is the coffee shop closing forever?’ ” Simeon said. “These are just local people.”

Simeon and his brother still don’t have any idea why their parents were arrested, but Simeon said it was unlikely that it was triggered by their humanitarian aid trips to nearby North Korea, which was through an evangelical Christian organization.

“That stuff was all through the government of North Korea,” said Simeon, adding with a laugh that “there was no sneaking across the border.”

The Garratts started out in China in the mid-’80s running two orphanages. Their passion for aiding North Korea began more recently as they noticed normal people were struggling to meet the same basic needs now as Chinese peasants did in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, Simeon said.

“I think North Korea reminds them a lot of those times. North Korea is basically like China was in the ’80s,” he said.

While working at an orphanage in the ’90s, the couple adopted a two-year-old daughter who was disabled by hip problems. The Garratts brought her to Canada for medical care, and she recently moved to Calgary and is about to start university. Their other sister lives in Edmonton with her husband and two children, he added.

Now, Simeon said he is the family’s point man on securing their parents’ release.

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